You may have heard this a million times from your parents or grandparents, but they always say that the old music is better than the music today. It’s more likely because the older music gives positive feelings when they have heard it before. It acts like a memory that people can read from their library mind. There has been scientific research that shows how the music we know triggers the emotional centers of the brain.
Guardians of the Galaxy uses a lot of songs from the past and it describes the type of character Star-Lord is. The music reminds him what home is like and it motivates him to power through the difficult times. Jeff Tweedy of Wilco said, “There’s no way you can compete with your early records as they’ve resonated with people because they have time to seep into people’s lives. A new record is immediate, and something immediate will never have the same set of emotions as something that’s been able to accumulate emotions over a long period of time.”
When people say old music is better than new music, it’s objective because each person has their own preferences on the genre they like. 70s soft rock emerged in the pandemic as people fought tough times at home and the war going on in Ukraine.
In Canada, the number of people who listened to newer music has decreased by 17.9 percent. The time spent listening to older music increased by 24 percent.
The older tunes embody the culture and desires of the past. Bobby Owsinski, an audio engineer, said, “One of the things that drove music in the 1970s and ’80s was the search to be different. Artists and labels weren’t afraid to take chances, and as a result, we had a wide variety of great music to choose from…Today we’re all about niche, and even worse, algorithms that feed us more of the same thing that we just listened to rather than something totally new and different.”
The algorithms help maintain engagement in music streaming platforms by providing us with tunes that are similar to the ones we’ve listened to. Also, some people believe that because technology makes songwriting easy, people can get lazy in mending out the perfect song. There is no climax or tension embedded in the music itself.
Then, everyone is afraid of getting sued for their songs. It is inevitable that there could be a melody similar to another.
What are some old songs that you enjoy?
